For consultants

Run the 26-Point Checklist with your clients

A practice is a consultant’s workspace on the framework: your client book, the audits your clients fill in or you facilitate with them, a ranked report for each under your own name, and re-audits that show what moved. Same 278 sub-categories, same ranking, same page your clients would see on their own — with you in the room.

Read the framework

How it works

Invite, or run it together

Add a client. Invite them by email to fill in their audit in their own time, or facilitate it with them in a session. Either way it is the same audit surface, and it works on a phone.

The client keeps their answers

An invited client signs in and accepts, and the audit they fill in is shared with your practice from its first answer. Their own private audit is never read by any practice, and they can stop sharing whenever they choose. You see what they choose to share, as they fill it in.

Report, then re-audit

Every audit produces the same ranked plan a business owner sees, headed with your practice name and logo, and it prints. Run it again in six months and the report says which categories moved, and by how much.

What the report contains

The first twelve moves, in order, each with why it ranked there: the client’s own rating beside the typical opportunity in that area.
The weakest categories overall, and the ones worth protecting rather than improving.
What can realistically be automated in each area, and what cannot.
Since the last audit — category averages compared, largest movement first.
The plan agreed with the client — confidence, evidence and a target on each of the top three — your notes from the session, the next review date, and which report this is in the series.
The framework version, the research date and the method line, so a report can be dated and argued with:

Framework v1.0 · benchmark research dated 22 August 2026 · research-informed prioritisation, not a validated diagnostic

See a sample report — Harbourline Joinery, a fictional business. The real report surface with sample data.

Sample. Harbourline Joinery does not exist; its ratings were written to show the report, not measured. Everything below is what a client of Example Practice would hold.

Sample client report · Harbourline Joinery (fictional)

What to fix first

This ranking is your own rating combined with how much opportunity the research says is typically available in that area. A weak area with little upside is not urgent; a strong area with high upside is already being harvested. What is left at the top is where both are true.

The arithmetic: each area’s rank is (10 − your rating) × the average of its three benchmark scores — time, financial and automation, weighted equally. The product orders the list and is never shown, because it is not a score.

Framework v1.0 · benchmark research dated 22 August 2026 · research-informed prioritisation, not a validated diagnostic

Answered

222/278

Your average

6.0/10

Areas to work on

216

Strong categories

Your first 12 moves

In order. Work down, not across.

Payables/creditors · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 1/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 9 · financial 8 · automation 10).

Automate scheduling to terms, approval workflow, duplicate-payment detection and early-payment-discount evaluation. Nine for time and ten for automation — this is administrative work that should not consume a person.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Operating cash flow · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 1/10 · typical opportunity 8.7/10 (time 7 · financial 10 · automation 9).

Automate a monthly operating cash flow report alongside the profit and loss. Seeing the two together is what makes the gap explicable rather than alarming.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Cash forecasting · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 9.7/10 (time 9 · financial 10 · automation 10).

Build a rolling 13-week forecast fed automatically from invoices, purchase orders, payroll and recurring commitments. Update it weekly without manual effort. Almost every element is already in systems you have.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Forecasting · 21 Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 9.3/10 (time 9 · financial 9 · automation 10).

Automate forecasts from pipeline, seasonality and historical conversion, and — importantly — automate the comparison of past forecasts to actuals so accuracy improves. An unreviewed forecast never gets better.

Read the full guidance for Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence →

Inventory investment where relevant · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 8 · financial 10 · automation 9).

Automate demand-based reorder points, ageing analysis and dead-stock identification. Converting excess stock to cash is often the fastest liquidity improvement available.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Reporting · 21 Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 10 · financial 7 · automation 10).

Automate end to end: scheduled, generated from source systems, delivered without anyone touching it. Free the time for interpretation, which is the part that actually helps.

Read the full guidance for Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence →

Receivables/debtors · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 3/10 · typical opportunity 10.0/10 (time 10 · financial 10 · automation 10).

Automate the whole cycle: invoice on completion, payment terms enforced, automated reminders before and after due date, escalation ladders, and an ageing report. Most small businesses are financing their customers for free without deciding to.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Liquidity · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 8.0/10 (time 6 · financial 10 · automation 8).

Automate monitoring against a stated minimum with alerts, and rerun a simple downside scenario monthly. Setting the buffer level is a risk-appetite decision.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Working capital · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 3/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 8 · financial 10 · automation 9).

Automate the calculation from your own data and track it monthly. Then attack each component — deposits, invoicing speed, terms, stock turns. It is a single number that focuses several improvements at once.

Read the full guidance for Cash Flow & Capital Management →

Customer analytics · 21 Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence

You rated this 3/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 8 · financial 9 · automation 10).

Automate cohort retention, segment profitability, purchase-interval and churn-risk analysis. The data almost always exists already; the analysis is the missing piece and it is a scheduled job.

Read the full guidance for Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence →

Usage/engagement where relevant · 07 Product-Market Fit & Demand

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 7.7/10 (time 6 · financial 8 · automation 9).

If your product or service generates usage data, pipe it into the customer record with automated low-usage alerts. This is one of the clearest wins in the framework where it applies at all.

Read the full guidance for Product-Market Fit & Demand →

Key performance indicators · 21 Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 7.7/10 (time 7 · financial 8 · automation 8).

Automate collection and display; choose the measures by hand. Aim for five to seven, each with an owner and a threshold that triggers a conversation.

Read the full guidance for Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence →

Since the last audit

Category averages compared with the previous audit, largest movement first. Only categories scored both times are compared.

Cash Flow & Capital Management · 1.1 → 2.1 (+1.0)

Purpose, Vision & Direction · 9.2 → 8.2 (-1.0)

Product-Market Fit & Demand · 2.0 → 3.0 (+1.0)

Strategy · 6.4 → 6.4 (0.0)

Market & Industry Position · 6.3 → 6.3 (0.0)

Customer Understanding · 6.3 → 6.3 (0.0)

Value Proposition · 6.8 → 6.8 (0.0)

Product & Service Quality · 6.1 → 6.1 (0.0)

Weakest categories overall

Averaged across the sub-categories you scored. Categories you barely answered will be unreliable here — that is a property of the data, not a judgement about your business.

Cash Flow & Capital Management · 2.1/10 across 13 scored

Business Operations

Product-Market Fit & Demand · 3.0/10 across 7 scored

Customers & Growth · 2 not yet answered

Data, Measurement & Decision Intelligence · 3.0/10 across 9 scored

Business Operations · 3 not yet answered

Sales System · 4.1/10 across 8 scored

Customers & Growth · 3 not yet answered

Product & Service Quality · 6.1/10 across 7 scored

Customers & Growth · 2 not yet answered

What you are already good at

Worth protecting rather than improving. Effort spent here has less left to give than effort spent at the top of the list.

Purpose, Vision & Direction · 8.2/10

Operations & Process Efficiency · 8.0/10

Governance, Risk, Compliance & Security · 7.0/10

Practitioner notes

Owner does all the invoicing on Friday afternoons and chases nothing until the bank balance looks wrong. Agreed to move invoicing to job completion and to put the two 90-day debtors on a payment plan before the next review.

Your plan

The top 3 of the list, turned into decisions. Say how sure you are, what the evidence is, and where you want to be — then pick a way forward for each. Everything you write here is saved with your audit and stays private.

Payables/creditors · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 1/10 · typical opportunity 9.0/10 (time 9 · financial 8 · automation 10).

Do it yourself

Payables are a cash lever you control directly. Paying early without reason gives away working capital; paying late without agreement costs relationships and sometimes supply.

Have it automated Not yet automated

Ask about automating this

Talk it through

A consultant looks at this area in the context of your actual business. Nothing about your ratings is in the message — you write it.

Email about this area

Operating cash flow · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 1/10 · typical opportunity 8.7/10 (time 7 · financial 10 · automation 9).

Do it yourself

The gap between profit and cash is where most small-business crises live. Growth consumes cash even when it produces profit.

Have it automated Not yet automated

Automate a monthly operating cash flow report alongside the profit and loss. Seeing the two together is what makes the gap explicable rather than alarming.

Ask about automating this

Talk it through

A consultant looks at this area in the context of your actual business. Nothing about your ratings is in the message — you write it.

Email about this area

Cash forecasting · 20 Cash Flow & Capital Management

You rated this 2/10 · typical opportunity 9.7/10 (time 9 · financial 10 · automation 10).

Do it yourself

Nine for time, ten for financial impact and ten for automation. A forecast converts a cash crisis into a scheduled decision, and it is the highest-value financial automation most businesses can make.

Have it automated Not yet automated

Ask about automating this

Talk it through

A consultant looks at this area in the context of your actual business. Nothing about your ratings is in the message — you write it.

Email about this area

This is a sample: a practitioner-facilitated assessment of a fictional business, built to show the report. On a real one, the ratings are the ones agreed in the session, the benchmark figures are researched cross-business averages and never the business’s own result, and the job of the report is to say where to look first.

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What it costs

Practice

A$129/mo

One person, the licence, the workspace

Each extra person

A$25/mo

A colleague who shares the client book

Each active client

A$25/mo

Archived clients are free and keep their history

Founding practitioners. The first 20 practices pay A$99 a month for the first 12 months, then the standard A$129. Claimed automatically at checkout while places remain.

Australian dollars, billed monthly, cancel any time. The framework and every business owner’s own audit stay free, and a client’s account is never charged — what a practice pays for is running a practice on it.

What a practice can and cannot see

A practice sees the audits it runs and the audits its clients share with it. It never sees a person’s private self-audit, and no route on this site returns one to anybody but its owner. The client’s invitation says the same in plain words before they accept, and the withdraw control on their results page works at any time.

Where the numbers come from